


Queen of the Hill

by AnnieHastur



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Origin Story, a whole lot of me elaborating on syndra's backstory bc riot forgot her and wont friggin do it, may add more tags/change warnings depending on if i write more of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 09:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6976669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnieHastur/pseuds/AnnieHastur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Testing your limits, watching, feeling them grow each day was the only thing you felt worth doing in this ramshackle farming village — you knew you belonged somewhere grander, somewhere your power would be beholden for what it was.</p><p>"Throughout her youth in Ionia, Syndra's reckless use of magic terrified the elders of her village. They took her to a remote temple." / An expansive look into Syndra's background and ill-fated confinement, the origins of the sovereign in the fortress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queen of the Hill

**Author's Note:**

> To be brief, Syndra is my absolute darling and main of two years and there hasn't been a character who I've been so completely invested in in a long long time. Her story and character are incredible but sadly have received little to no expansion from Riot since her release - cue me and my flurry of headcanons that I finally thought about putting into words.
> 
> I wanted to write my own take on expanding Syndra's backstory, starting here with her childhood in Ionia, early clashes against its reserved culture, and ultimately her isolation. Relevant lore, for context:  
> "Throughout her youth in Ionia, Syndra's reckless use of magic terrified the elders of her village. They took her to a remote temple, leaving her in the care of an old mage. To Syndra's delight, the mage explained that the temple was a school—a place where she could develop her talents."
> 
> For this piece she's about 8-9 years old.

Your control is as seamless as exhaling now, you don’t even have to throw your hands in front of you to command what energy flows there and pivot it outwards, sending your latest brave **(** fool **)** challenger toppling down the hill in a cloud of your village’s iconic pale soot.

You smirk, that felt pleasing — you didn’t have to exert yourself _at all_ now. You were becoming stronger.

“Is that all you’ve got? I’ll be up here forever.”

Another child comes and helps him clamber to his feet. He has to spit out the dirt and shield the afternoon sun’s glare with his palm before he looks up at you.

“You didn’t even touch me! You can’t use your magic, that’s not fair.”

You chortle, arms crossing — this again? When would your dear playmates learn?

“What Queen _isn’t_ at leisure to use whatever power she has at her fingertips, Shayou?”

You twist your head in defiance so your ponytail swishes over your shoulder. Most children of your village grew their hair out, but few as long or as fine or as white as yours, such that it shone like silver even through the dust that’s inevitably settled over it by this time of day. It was a point of pride. It made you feel regal.

“You know the Elders will scold you again if you keep using it like this, Syndra.”

It’s the girl who’d helped the fool Shayou to his feet now scowling at you. The rest of the children had their usual inputs too—“ _Yeah you always ruin the game!_ ” “ _You could have hurt him._ ” “ _I’m going to tell on you to Elder Narani._ ”

He says it like the Elder wouldn’t know regardless. And like her now-weekly reprimands were anything more than a mildly grating inconvenience at this point. 

“She can’t stop me — it is what’s mine to use. You know, the Elders wouldn’t allow us to be playing ‘king of the hill’ _at all_ — such reckless, unbalanced violence, they’ll say...”

There’s a poignant mockery of the Elder and her infuriatingly soft-spoken reproaches in your tone. 

You find and draw in a few more stray wisps of power and funnel it to your toes, your bare heels — you float a few inches, because it never hurts to tower over them a little more.

“If you ask me, I have all the balance in the world.”

The other children look up at you with their typical, expectant, sun-squinting eyes. Like they think you’re going to come down and don’t understand why youhaven’t yet. Like your talent is a cause of exhaustion for them and not a wonder.

It only hurts a little bit.

“Now come on, does anyone dare try unseat the Queen before sundown?”

\-----

You weren’t unseated, and it disappoints you how quickly they’d given up. Not that you believed for a second that they’d come close, but you liked them trying. You valued your playtime because testing your limits, watching, _feeling_ them grow each day was the only thing you felt worth doing in this ramshackle farming village — you knew you belonged somewhere grander, somewhere your power would be beholden for what it was. You wouldn’t have been blessed with it if that wasn’t the case, if you weren’t going to _mean something_ in the end. All you needed to do while you waited was let your power grow.

You float home. It’s second nature now; your preferred means of traversing these streets — why get your feet dirty? Even before you had mastered the trick, you’d never been one to wear shoes. You only owned one pair of sandals and they were so poor-made and flimsy you couldn’t stand them. 

Your mother didn’t stop you from leaving home without your shoes or passing your days playing on the hill — she didn’t stop much of anything, really. Quiet, domestic, unassertive to the core she’s the mold cut Ionian woman - you _know_ by now that your flirts with your power worry her, that she’d rather you not be barefoot, that your constant disdain from the elders had branded her too with a shame she did not want, but she said nothing. She let her fates run their course. You aren’t sure what you make of your mother **(** not now. when you don’t know how you’d miss her **)** \- you care for her, you value the freedom **(** and yet, take it for granted **)** but you never wanted to _be_ like her, untaught, unwilling, _unable_ to assert any control. 

This is why you’re surprised to find her waiting outside your home. She never waited on you. She let you go, she let you come.

“Mama—?”

Your house is a square of cement foundation and moth-bitten wood beneath a rotting thatched roof, not unlike any other structure in your village where only the temples were anything worth boasting **(** it maddened you, that their incorporeal spirits that supposedly preached of resisting the world’s indulgences got temples of marble and gold while you got wood, stone, mold and hay **)**. She stands on parched grass just ahead of the steps to the door, arms folded with a rare expression of urgency further lining her careworn face. 

Her eyes widen when she hears your voice and she scoops up the slack of her petticoat and rushes to you. She takes your arm and tugs you, still hovering, back towards the home.

“What is it Mama—?”

“Where have you been Syndra...ah it doesn’t matter now, come, come we shouldn’t keep them waiting any longer—”

“Who?”

She pulls you to the threshold and you descend, soles meeting the cold stone. You hurry inside after her, perturbed — you’ve never seen your mother so rushed before, who had come? Who was waiting?

“Oh.”

Your curiosity sinks into disgruntlement — you _should_ have known. Elder Narani kneels where she always does when she comes to see **(** scorn **)** you, at the head of your meal table. This time she isn’t alone — there is an elderly bearded man you’ve never seen before seated to her right, but you know he must be an elder too from the tall, golden headdress he wears at the back of his head. It irritates you how they spoke of humility but even in your tiny sitting room where you stood in your rough cotton tunic, they wore their exuberant crowns and jade-threaded robes. 

Sometimes, when you were playing with the other children, you would make replicas of the noble headpieces for yourself out of rope and leaves and twigs. You wished you’d done so today. You’d have liked to see their faces.

Your mother kneels and bows her head. This is not new to you — you were not the only one whose whims she rolled over to. If and when the elders wished to have their words with you, they would always have her at their behest. You hated it.

“I apologize, Elder. Your visit was unexpected, so Syndra had gone far to play.”

Elder Narani’s eyes are fixated on you, not your bowing mother the entire time.

“It is alright, you needn’t have waited out. We could sense her approach. Such...unbridled aura.”

Ionians never raised their voices, never used words that were in themselves venom, never let their scorn color their measured tone. But you could always pick it regardless, and taught yourself to take it as a point of pride — yes, let them pay attention to the talent you had. 

Mama rises, glances from you to the Elders as though to inform you that they were here to see you specifically and as if that was anything shy of the norm and sweeps herself toward the kitchen, to prepare them the tea she always did. 

“Syndra, I would like to introduce you to Master Toki.”

Narani beckons the old man beside her and looks at you like she expects you to sit down, humble yourself to their level. You choose to float again, crossing your legs together a good two feet from the ground. 

The old man, Toki, hasn’t let his wrinkle-sewn eyes leave you for a second. 

“One glance.” **(** the first thing you note is that his voice is strikingly withered and feeble **)** “One glance and it was clear as the lakes of Navori that your potential is tremendous, a scope unheard of.”

It’s the same disdain veiled behind acclaim, only spoken in a voice softer still than the thousand you’ve heard spew it before. Your pout doesn’t falter.

 **(** narani’s offense is so slightly audible now — which meant you were pushing the collected elder to wit’s end. good **)**

“Master Toki is a prodigal mage, my child, one of Ionia’s utmost blessed and deserves your respect. He is the priest of a far-off temple. He travelled all this way at my request.”

Oh but of course, now that all the village elders had said their piece, she was bringing in those from across the land to join in her spiels. Or rather, sit there and watch while she did the talking because from what you could tell so far, this Master Toki seemed the most soft-spoken and blow-over **(** and it said a lot **)** of all the geezers you’d met to date. You almost wanted to laugh.

“Syndra, a child of your potential — with such reckless abandon at that - cannot remain here unchecked. You will be accompanying Master Toki to his temple, where you will remain—”

And in one moment, you’re all but laughing.

You shriek. 

“ _What!_ ”

The realisations hit in one shattering swoop, like you’d hurled a sphere of raw, burning aura at your own skull and you hate yourself for not putting it together sooner, because then at least you could have _run_. 

“ _Why_?!”

They’d been threatening it for years, that if you continued to use your powers as you did, you would be sent away. But it always felt so illogical **(** how could they unseat you from the only home you knew **)** , so unjust **(** how could they exile you for what you were born with **)** , so _empty_ **(** _how could they speak such threats, resting on their laurels, without a hope of action_ **)** you’d long since dismissed them as petty talk, a means to scare you into submission.

But in that moment where you remembered your mother’s unusual urgency as you returned home, when it occurs to you that a man from far-off had bothered travel to your forgotten hole of a village, when you felt the aura crumble beneath your legs and send you crashing to the floor, where you scramble to a stand and you yell — that’s when you realise this is no longer empty.

That’s when you want to run. 

**(** or fight. if only you felt yourself strong enough **)**

“This power — it’s _mine._ I can do what I want with it! W-Why are you punishing me for what I was born with!”

Your heart is racing, your eyes are burning all of a sudden and you know you want to cry. You are so scared, of the unknown, of the power they held over you that it’s warped your senses and you can’t even feel the aura around you, let alone make use of it **(** impale them with it **)**.

But even in the face of a child who they’d reduced to your pathetic shivering state, these elders remain stone-faced, unbothered. It’s the thing you despise the most. 

This village could burn to the ground and they wouldn’t even _care_.

Narani raises a steady hand.

“Patience, my child — nothing was said of punishment.”

You can’t keep your tears contained.

“ _Then why do you want to send me away!_ ”

It’s Toki who finally speaks. He hasn’t stopped looking at you.

“Potential without guidance is waste, Syndra.” His voice is so gentle. **(** you’re certain it’s patronizing you. you hate it. _you hate i—_ **)** “Where you will be going is a school, one where you will be taught refinery, and in turn, utmost mastery of the magic you possess.”

One word brings the blazing storm in your chest to a sudden halt.

“School..?” 

You mumble it, your voice a shadow of its screams of seconds ago. Behind your misted eyes, your thoughts race.

They catch your wildest fantasies.

“Th-the Placidium?”

The School of Transcendentalism, the institution that originated Ionia’s most divine maguses — the halls within which you had always believed you deserved to stand. How you daydreamed of one day graduating from it to serve in the Justicar Legion, among — or even _above —_ those chosen few others who had become so attuned with their magic it was regarded a point of spiritual ascension.

Could this be the day?

Your mouth hangs a fraction open, the remnants of your tears all but forgotten.

“You are an ambitious one.” 

A shadow of a smile crosses Elder Narani’s face. She still looks unfazed by your outburst, but you don’t care for her empathy anymore. You just want her word.

“First you must be educated in the basics of magic and its control, child...and dare I say, patience. But should you take to it, you will surely be able to join the legion one day. You certainly have the potential.”

Beside her, Master Toki drops his bearded head into a slow, but sure nod.

“Far more than any Justicar I have known.”

Your heart rises. 

“I-I…”

You’re struck with such excitement, such _relief_ , it’s as though you’ve been winded, light-headed and feeling you could topple over. You didn’t care that they insisted on you mastering these basics first — what you already knew, they would see. What you didn’t, you would learn. For every night you spent dreaming of the better life you deserved, there was another spent in fear that you’d been forgotten, overlooked. That no amount of potential would have you rescued from rotting here in this town.

You no longer had to live with that dread. You had been remembered, noticed, chosen.

 **(** there had always been one thing the elders of the village had never gotten out of you— **)**

You drop to your knees, and you bow.

“Please, teach me.”

\-----

You’re to meet the Master at the village temple at sundown. They told you the journey would be long **(** though this did nothing to quell your enthusiasm. not like you would walk **)** and you ought make haste. Then they suggested you fare your mother well.

You didn’t know how long you would be away — you’d heard stories of how magical training could years or even decades of study. But you’d also been told you were one in a million, a prodigy - maybe it would be faster for you. Either way, you weren’t going to let the temporary isolation from your family and your friends dissuade you from what you’d always dreamed of.

You planned to pack your **(** what little **)** things and then kiss her on the way out. You didn’t want to dwell. But she waits for you in the doorway of your shared room, her arms extended wide.

You relent. You throw yourself into her embrace. 

“I will miss you.”

She squeezes you. A bit too tight. You huff into her chest.

“It’s _okay_ , I’ll see you again, Mama. I’m going to train to be a true sorceress. Did you hear, one day I’ll be able to join the legion. Aren’t you proud, Mama?” 

You feel her head move into a nod. You bury your eyes further into her apron, so she won’t see the tears you felt leaking. This is exactly what you hadn’t wanted. _How pathetic_.

“It...really really means, it’s not like they always said — I’m not a bad person after all, right?”

She holds you tighter still.

“No, of course you’re not, my little queen.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hah, hope I did my girl justice - or at least more than my feeding ass does her in game. In all seriousness, I see Syndra as someone who always had a prideful, holier-than-thou streak about her immense natural talent, and by no means completely virtuous. But at the same time an emotive, assertive child who was always going to be at ends with a society that condemned anything short of pure restraint (and we know, from a lot of the other lore that Ionia's value system sure...needs work), and all this left Syndra longing understanding and empathy, factors which would deeply shape what she would become. By no means a faultless victim, but at the same time I think there's more to her than a portrayal where she's simply a menace wreaking violence for the sake of it - that's what I was trying to get at here.
> 
> Also, a fact for those who don't know it: it was mentioned on Syndra's initial q&a thread by a Rioter that her Justicar Skin is a possible conception of what she could have been if things didn't go so sour. Hence the reference here!
> 
> anywho, thanks for reading. Not sure if I'll expand into more, I have more headcanons for later parts of her life but. will the motivation strike. we'll have to see. aaaaaaaaaaand a huge shoutout to /r/syndramains on reddit, for helping me consolidate a lot of my headcanons!


End file.
